Obsession over grades is killing American Education

[Diadem]

It's more than that. Finland can find a relatively small number of very good teachers. There are about 5.3 million people in Finland compared to 311.6 in the US or 62.2 in the UK. In larger countries like the US, India, and China you have to take into account the large swaths of very rural, thinly populated land vs extremely large urban centers.

What are you trying to say here? Sure a bigger country needs many more good teachers. But it also has a much larger talent pool to draw from. The number required good teachers per 100 inhabitants remains the same regardless of country size. Only in very extreme cases may you see an effect. A very small country may have trouble setting up a very high quality university because of lack of scientists.

Population density similarly doesn't matter, except in very extreme cases. Only if population density becomes so low that you can no longer fill schools do you run into problems. But this won't apply to the vast majority of the US. Besides Finland is far less densely populated than the US anyway.

Anyway, finding good teachers is not that hard. Teaching skills are not very rare. It's just that you need to pay them well, because the kind of people who have teaching skills generally also have plenty of other skills. Most countries seem to vastly underpay teachers, resulting in most high quality potential teachers taking a different career.

[Dark567]

I really do feel this is at the core of America's educational problems we'll find that hiring incompetent teachers who can't be trusted to evaluate our children's progress in a meaningful way without standardized testing is a far more important issue than trying to tweak how the testing is done...

Your wrong about teacher pay, but you are correct about this. I would hardly say that the problem is just improper hiring though, the US trains more teachers every year than we need. The problem is that once we hire the bad ones we don't ever fire them.

Yes, one of the problems is diversity, and another is sheer number of people, a problem which Canada does not have. And the idea that American's pay teachers much less than other countries? The average salary of a teacher in Canada is lower in most regions than their US counterparts and even the Brits pay their teachers less.

Actually, when adjusted for purchasing power(and considering average instead of starting salary), the US pays their teachers more annually than any almost any other country(Luxemburg seems to be the only one that pays more).

http://www.worldsalaries.org/teacher.shtml

It's more than that. Finland can find a relatively small number of very good teachers. There are about 5.3 million people in Finland compared to 311.6 in the US or 62.2 in the UK. In larger countries like the US, India, and China you have to take into account the large swaths of very rural, thinly populated land vs extremely large urban centers.

There are even more factors than that. The US has fairly high immigration of people who don't speak English as a first language causing problems in many subjects(trying to grasp a math course taught in English is inherently more difficult when you are still learning English). There are bureaucratic problems having to provide education for so many people, the bureaucratic management involved with teaching 5 million people versus 300 million is going to be harder. Much more akin to trying to solve all the education problems in all of Western Europe. Although the US doesn't really try to do this and leaves most of education up to the states.

[Diadem]

Actually, when adjusted for purchasing power(and considering average instead of starting salary), the US pays their teachers more annually than any almost any other country(Luxemburg seems to be the only one that pays more).

Comparing net salaries is a bad metric though. Of course a country like the US, with a very low tax rate, is going to do better than other countries, if you look at net income. I don't want to start a discussion about taxation here, that's off-topic, but clearly you should be looking at gross income.

The US figure of 5266 US dollar translates to € 3948. That's less than what British or German teachers make.

[Dark567]

The US figure of 5266 US dollar translates to € 3948. That's less than what British or German teachers make.

No, that's only less than German(which it is really close to, and when adjusted for PPP is actually more).

[Diadem]

The US figure of 5266 US dollar translates to € 3948. That's less than what British or German teachers make.

No, that's only less than German(which it is really close to, and when adjusted for PPP is actually more).

Ah sorry. I was using google to translate currencies but accidently translated the pounds into dollars, not euros. My bad. Anyway, my point still stands that you should look at gross income.

Even then I'm not sure how relevant such a comparison is. There are so many factors involved. The precise job description is probably very different across countries. The required education is probably different too. Some countries pay all teachers the same, others have vast differences, for a variety of reasons.

And ultimately it's asking the wrong question. Because the question is not "what does a teacher make compared to other countries" but "what does a teacher make compared to other professions". How does the salary of US teachers compare to that of similarly educated people in the US? That's what is relevant. Because that determines if skill people are going to pursue a career in teaching or not.

[Dauric]

There are bureaucratic problems having to provide education for so many people, the bureaucratic management involved with teaching 5 million people versus 300 million is going to be harder. Much more akin to trying to solve all the education problems in all of Western Europe. Although the US doesn't really try to do this and leaves most of education up to the states.

This is part of the thing.

In a wildly hyperbolic example say we've got one government bureaucrat doing something, but there's twice as much work to do as this one guy can do. So we hire another guy, except now we need to move the first guy to training the new guy which means the real work isn't getting done so we have to hire yet another guy to fill in the first guy's place fortunately the first guy is already working a training seminar so we can avoid having to hire yet someone else, but we can't shift the first guy back in to his old position because now he has to be in a supervisory position to make sure that the other two are doing the same kinds of work the same way so that the processing of all their work remains uniform.

1+1 = 3.

This is a hyperbolic and silly example to be sure, but illustrative of the problem of scale with large organizations. If you're finding adequate numbers of teachers in a suburban population (which I place the "ideal" at since my anecdotal evidence is that the best school districts in the U.S. are suburban), in a large urban metro with a similar population (Protip: they're not similar populations in the first place, see next paragraph) you're going to have to split some percentage of those teachers off to administrative duties (or hand administration off to people who build widgets and don't know the first thing about handling live specim.. err.. teaching students which gets you another flavor of suboptimal).

And this is before you come to the realization that the people with the best skills to teach often have better skills to do something else and are willing to do those jobs that can move them out of certain neighborhoods. which leaves historically poor or otherwise high-crime neighborhoods with a lack of people who could teach because regardless of pay they could have a better -lifestyle- in a different area than in the populations that need their skills the most.

On the other hand...

Excessively sparse populations run in to issues of material and related logistical issues. Tax revenue for the district is likely to be lower per capita (agricultural land has significantly lower taxes than residential or commercial) so you're going to have less money per student to buy books, and to provide transportation to and from school not only do you have less money to do that with, but in order to actually populate a modern school building you have to cast a much wider net and have a significantly larger district, which means longer busing routes.

Why fill a modern scaled building, why not use Ye' Olde' One-Room Schoolhouse? [Cue the old guy with the cane screaming that it was good enough for him in his day] See that problem with the administration that I lead this post off with? The more physical locations you separate an activity in to the more administrators you need to oversee the whole mess. So just throw a single teacher in a single schoolhouse then. [cue old guy with the cane again] Sure, if you don't care about evaluating the quality of the education being presented (Oh wait that's the whole point of the discussion), and/or want your one teacher to be blowing time they could be teaching or grading papers making budgetary requests and trying to requisition books and making school population reports and filing incident reports and reviewing legal consequences of paddling little Timmy for mouthing off...

So your rural district has to gather a critical mass of students from a massive area in order to be able to run the bureaucracy efficiently and without going in to terrifying cost overruns from redundant employees, but gathering that many students over such a large area has it's own costs, not only in dollars but in hours (Sally and Gerald have to get up at 5:30 in the morning to make it to their 45-minute bus ride, ad the driver's been on the road (and on the clock) even longer than that) so the whole mess has to be carefully balanced.

And of course this assumes you can find enough teachers willing to live and work in rural outbacks where it takes an hour or longer simply in travel time to "go to town" just to buy groceries, or for their spouse to get to work in the nearest suburban area, or just to go see a movie,.... (Yes I've lived in middle of nowhere. It sucks). Again, they've got skills in demand, even if it's not teaching, that they can go to work in a community with a much better lifestyle than living in a house neighboring a cow pasture.

...

So, yeah the TL;DR of it is that there are significant differences in high and low population centers when it comes to gathering enough qualified teachers

[folkhero]

And ultimately it's asking the wrong question. Because the question is not "what does a teacher make compared to other countries" but "what does a teacher make compared to other professions". How does the salary of US teachers compare to that of similarly educated people in the US? That's what is relevant. Because that determines if skill people are going to pursue a career in teaching or not.

They are compensated pretty well per hour compared to other professionals. Annual salaries don't look that great because of the 3 month summer vacation and 2 week Christmas break.

[Lucrece]

While pretty much all other professions at best get 2 weeks vacation time, and even sometimes you are required to take each week separated from the other. That's more a problem with how vacations work in the US -- while 3 months and 2 weeks might be stretching it, 2 weeks out of an entire year is absurd - you're living to work, not working to live.

[sourmìlk]

Those lucky god damned Europeans often take en entire month off in August

[kiklion]

And ultimately it's asking the wrong question. Because the question is not "what does a teacher make compared to other countries" but "what does a teacher make compared to other professions". How does the salary of US teachers compare to that of similarly educated people in the US? That's what is relevant. Because that determines if skill people are going to pursue a career in teaching or not.

They are compensated pretty well per hour compared to other professionals. Annual salaries don't look that great because of the 3 month summer vacation and 2 week Christmas break.

Beyond that is also the working conditions, which is far more important for a number of people. For instance, I may very well much rather work with 18 year old women than submitting myself to the will of 60 year old business owners.

[Heisenberg]

They are compensated pretty well per hour compared to other professionals. Annual salaries don't look that great because of the 3 month summer vacation and 2 week Christmas break.

But annual salaries are the reality. Some teachers I know do take summers off, and others try and get summer work tutoring or landscaping, or at a coffee shop or whatnot. Regardless, it's not really possible to maintain that $30/hr over the summer the way that other professions do, so I think it'd be more fair to average 9 months of teacher hourly wage with 3 months of minimum wage, since it's pretty much impossible to find a summer job that pays that well. That winds up closer to $25/hr on the year, which is still solidly middle class, but also assumes that a summer job is available.

[Dark567]

While pretty much all other professions at best get 2 weeks vacation time

Is that really true? I mean I know that's a lot of what people get when they start jobs, but it seems like later in their careers they get more. I get 4 weeks plus a couple extra days and then that goes up every two or three years.

Pre-edit: So that looks like what you approximately get starting, but it seems to go up a little bit over time.
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/ebs.t05.htm

[Diadem]

And ultimately it's asking the wrong question. Because the question is not "what does a teacher make compared to other countries" but "what does a teacher make compared to other professions". How does the salary of US teachers compare to that of similarly educated people in the US? That's what is relevant. Because that determines if skill people are going to pursue a career in teaching or not.

They are compensated pretty well per hour compared to other professionals. Annual salaries don't look that great because of the 3 month summer vacation and 2 week Christmas break.

That article was clearly written by someone with no experience whatsoever with teaching. Teachers spend lots of evenings and weekends preparing lessons or tests, grading tests, etc. Every single study I ever read on the subject shows that teachers put in very long hours, way above average. Yes, you have a lot of holidays, but the smaller ones are generally filled with grading. Only the Christmas and summer holidays are really time off. That's still a bit more than the average worker, I guess, and that's certainly a nice. But they more than compensate that by the many hours they put during normal weeks.

The article gets somewhat surrealistic when the writer cites figures about teachers being absent much more than other professions. Yes, the fact that teachers are ill or overworked so often must mean that they have easy jobs. Clearly. *headdesks*.


*Edit*: Also, life does not get cheaper just because you're not working. It's not like you can just switch yourself off during those months that you are not working. Finally, even if total hours for a teacher maybe are shorter, having them distributed like that is still highly stressful. I'd rather work 40 hours a week for 50 weeks per year than 50 hours for 40 weeks straight. Irregular working hours always gets paid more.

[Lucrece]

While pretty much all other professions at best get 2 weeks vacation time

Is that really true? I mean I know that's a lot of what people get when they start jobs, but it seems like later in their careers they get more. I get 4 weeks plus a couple extra days and then that goes up every two or three years.

Pre-edit: So that looks like what you approximately get starting, but it seems to go up a little bit over time.
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/ebs.t05.htm

Depends on the position, but yeah, seniority plays into that. I can say with experience that the health services related fields are pretty grim in terms of schedule flexibility, at least down here in Miami. The pay is good, however.

A physical therapist is at most a 4 year program, and in Florida you can earn up to 70-80 dollars an hour as a PT, with some averages at 80k/year. I'm surprised the field hasn't been flooded at this point -- the gate of accessibility for such position is not particularly high. The program in a community/state college at most will also run you 20-30k.

[Heisenberg]

Teachers spend lots of evenings and weekends preparing lessons or tests, grading tests, etc.

Most salaried workers put in more than 40 hours a week.

Especially those of us who have to travel for work.

Edit: Added quote for clarity

[Garm]

Don't forget having to earn continuing education credits in order to keep your credential. Also paying for school supplies out of pocket because the money doesn't trickle down to your classroom.

[Heisenberg]

Every job has similar issues. I got a Master's degree in my field. My dentist friend has to take continuing education credits, and my electrician friend takes annual classes on changes to the code. The supplies thing sucks, but not every teacher has that problem, and the reason job supplies are tax deductible is because it's commonplace to have to buy stuff for work out-of-pocket.

And we don't even get tenure!

[LaserGuy]

Teachers spend lots of evenings and weekends preparing lessons or tests, grading tests, etc.

Most salaried workers put in more than 40 hours a week.

Especially those of us who have to travel for work.

Edit: Added quote for clarity

According to this (Canadian), this (UK), teachers and other educators are among leading professions both in likelihood of working unpaid overtime and number of unpaid hours worked.

[folkhero]

The article gets somewhat surrealistic when the writer cites figures about teachers being absent much more than other professions. Yes, the fact that teachers are ill or overworked so often must mean that they have easy jobs. Clearly. *headdesks*.

Why are you assuming that the only reason they are missing more work is that they are sick and overworked?

Don't forget having to earn continuing education credits in order to keep your credential.

True, but continuing your education will also increase your base pay and, eventually your pension.

As far as getting summers off, I'm sure some teachers would prefer to work through the summer and get paid through the summer, but a lot of teachers love the freedom and flexibility of having all that time off. Particularly parents of school aged children, who get to spend large periods of time with their children during the summer (when the kids are off from school) which is an opportunity that very few professional careers offer.

Look, I'm not saying teachers are overpaid, or pampered, or don't work hard. My mom is a public school teacher, so I know any decent teacher works hard and has to out up with some shit, but most middle class professionals work hard and almost everyone's job involves putting up with shit. We can argue specifics of the tradeoffs between salary and time off, and the specifics of what shit they deal with compared to other occupations all week if we want. The question was, "how is teacher compensation compared with compensation of professionals of similar education in other fields?" and to me it looks pretty comparable, nowhere near as bad as the 'underpaid teacher' meme would suggest.

[LaserGuy]

The article gets somewhat surrealistic when the writer cites figures about teachers being absent much more than other professions. Yes, the fact that teachers are ill or overworked so often must mean that they have easy jobs. Clearly. *headdesks*.

Why are you assuming that the only reason they are missing more work is that they are sick and overworked?

Well, people who deal with children do tend to get sick a lot more often than people who deal with, say, computers. [edit]According to this, surfaces regularly used by teachers have an average of 10 times as many bacteria per square inch compared to the average.

[Heisenberg]

According to this (Canadian), this (UK), teachers and other educators are among leading professions both in likelihood of working unpaid overtime and number of unpaid hours worked.

Thank goodness for numbers. So teachers do work more hours (although "unpaid overtime" is kind of misleading when you're talking about salaried workers). Still, if we compare the hours teachers work vs. the hours other professions work, the hourly rate still won't be too bad by comparison, at least to the other professions on these charts. And again, to Diadem's point, annual income is probably more relevant considering that you have to pay rent during the summer.

[Griffin]

folkhero, I think the real metric is - are we paying our teachers enough to get teachers of the quality we desire.

If we aren't getting them, then we need to do something, whether its higher pay, advocacy, recruiting, changing restrictions, etc. and so on.

Do enough people think the money is worth - the absurd rules concerning private activity while away from school, the fact that you have to deal with large groups of kids every day, the bureaucracy, the parents, working nights and weekends, etc. and so on.

There are other jobs that are probably worse, but they either pay more or make do with more desperate employees. Because lets be honest - teachers are important. If we aren't getting the return we need, we either aren't paying them enough or we're doing something wrong somewhere else.

[Dauric]

folkhero, I think the real metric is - are we paying our teachers enough to get teachers of the quality we desire.

If we aren't getting them, then we need to do something, whether its higher pay, advocacy, recruiting, changing restrictions, etc. and so on.

Do enough people think the money is worth - the absurd rules concerning private activity while away from school, the fact that you have to deal with large groups of kids every day, the bureaucracy, the parents, working nights and weekends, etc. and so on.

There are other jobs that are probably worse, but they either pay more or make do with more desperate employees. Because lets be honest - teachers are important. If we aren't getting the return we need, we either aren't paying them enough or we're doing something wrong somewhere else.

This.

Pay is only one part of a person's overall quality of life, and what jobs a person takes are about their desires for overall quality of life not just pay alone.

[Heisenberg]

I think the money's not a problem. The reason I'm not a teacher is the barrier to entry. Because most teaching jobs require a teaching degree that is all-but-useless outside of education, it's already difficult to transition people into (or out of) teaching jobs. Even when you don't need a specialized degree, you need a semester or a year's worth of student teaching. That is, full-time work without pay. Kind of hard on folks who have bills.

If they had paid training or accepted graduates in the field, we'd have more competition for teaching jobs. (Although I guess in order for that to have a positive impact you'd also need a way to fire bad teachers.)

[Dark567]

If we aren't getting the return we need, we either aren't paying them enough or we're doing something wrong somewhere else.

The thing is we have no lack of people seeking education degrees, or even people willing to be teachers(admittedly measuring the quality of them is harder). The firing rate for teachers is very low. At least part of the problem is we aren't getting rid of the bad teachers often enough to make room for the good ones.

[Bubbles McCoy]

I completely agree with Griffin's approach, but here's a decent look at comparative teacher pay by the OECD. Judging from Figure 4.2, America is very slightly below average in pay (ranked 11th out of 20 countries), but above average in working hours.

[Dark567]

I completely agree with Griffin's approach, but here's a decent look at comparative teacher pay by the OECD. Judging from Figure 4.2, America is very slightly below average in pay (ranked 11th out of 20 countries).

Honestly, I think measuring by pay per gdp per capita is one of the worst ways to measure relative pay. I mean the two lowest in the OECD are Sweden and Norway, because they have such high GDP's per capita. Turkey pays the highest. The article even clearly states that the general trend is that the richer a country is, the lower the relative pay(by its measure). This is exactly what I would expect, the marginal productivity of teachers probably doesn't rise as fast as other professions as countries become richer.

[kiklion]

I think the money's not a problem. The reason I'm not a teacher is the barrier to entry. Because most teaching jobs require a teaching degree that is all-but-useless outside of education, it's already difficult to transition people into (or out of) teaching jobs. Even when you don't need a specialized degree, you need a semester or a year's worth of student teaching. That is, full-time work without pay. Kind of hard on folks who have bills.

If they had paid training or accepted graduates in the field, we'd have more competition for teaching jobs. (Although I guess in order for that to have a positive impact you'd also need a way to fire bad teachers.)

This is also why I am not a teacher, I was going to college to become a teacher but changed my major junior year because the red tape on it doesn't pan out. Instead I went for math and computers. Rather then having to get certified and continued education credits (my father does these, he gets raises because he took a course on classical music as one example), I just stay current in my field and get raises through being a better worker. Other friends in the education field can't find jobs and I have had to turn down job offers that came after me. Even if I wanted to go back to teaching, I couldn't take classes while working because my job would only allow night classes and I don't believe I could cover the student teaching portion at night.

So instead I do tutor kids in math or programming and make $40/hour on the side. Started with the brother of a kid my dad does one on one with (special needs, brother is fully functional) and his mom just spread it out word of mouth.

[Griffin]

I'm also not a teacher right now because of the red tape, and I live in a state where you don't even need a degree to teach.

I'm actually thinking about bypassing the public school system completely and teaching at a private school, but it sucks to know I could teach there for a great many years and still not meet the requirements to teach in the vast majority of places in the country.

Plus I resent the fact that having a life outside school is basically the only way to get fired. You can be a shit teacher and you'll stay somewhere forever, but if someone manages to snap a picture of you drinking a beer? Oh god, you're done, get out. :/

Mind you that second bit is simply because parents will get worked up about the second and not the first, making it more of a problem with our screwed up society, but still.

Kikklion: Hah! I do tutoring on the side too! Though I run my classes for free, I get more than enough money from my regular job, I don't want to teach to make money so much as to impart knowledge.

[Bubbles McCoy]

Honestly, I think measuring by pay per gdp per capita is one of the worst ways to measure relative pay. I mean the two lowest in the OECD are Sweden and Norway, because they have such high GDP's per capita. Turkey pays the highest. The article even clearly states that the general trend is that the richer a country is, the lower the relative pay(by its measure). This is exactly what I would expect, the marginal productivity of teachers probably doesn't rise as fast as other professions as countries become richer.

Isn't that kinda the point of figure 4.2? The report generally emphasizes pay per gdp per capita relative to the trend with respect to total gdp.

[Dark567]

Isn't that kinda the point of figure 4.2? The report generally emphasizes pay per gdp per capita relative to the trend with respect to total gdp.

Yeah, but why should we care, when some of the best results are coming from countries with the lowest relative pay?

[Bubbles McCoy]

Yeah, but why should we care, when some of the best results are coming from countries with the lowest relative pay?

We shouldn't, I just thought there was so much vague references to pay that we'd be better off establishing some facts. That's why I prefaced it by saying I agree with Griffin, in that pay is a means to an end and is meaningless in of itself.

[Dark567]

That's why I prefaced it by saying I agree with Griffin, in that pay is a means to an end and is meaningless in of itself.

But, I am not sure that's true either. There does seem to be some correlation between absolute pay and student performance, although that could be non causal(i.e. rich countries have better education systems and pay their teachers higher in absolute, but not relative terms).

[Griffin]

Or it just means that pay is a means to that end. Perhaps not a sufficient one, but it is one. Which is... exactly what we were saying?

Regardless, compensation is not equal between two jobs just because pay is equal. Most other countries that have quality education systems are missing something incredibly important that teaching in America lacks.

Prestige.

And to a large bulk of the human population, that is worth far far more than money.

If you could have the title of Doctor and 50k a year or the title of Elementary School Teacher at 70k a year, which do you think most people would pick? (Assuming equal work and effort either way)

[Bubbles McCoy]

But, I am not sure that's true either. There does seem to be some correlation between absolute pay and student performance, although that could be non causal(i.e. rich countries have better education systems and pay their teachers higher in absolute, but not relative terms).

Yeah, maybe. Given the number of variables and dependencies to check (pay, hours, class size) and the low correlations, it's pretty hard to get beyond noise with twenty measly data points.

[Diadem]

Let's drop the subject of pay for a while, and look at this from a different perspective. I can't speak for the US, but I can talk about the Dutch situation. And if I'm not mistaken the US is similar. My mother has been a teacher for over 35 years (she's retired now). When she just started, about 40 years ago, almost every one of her colleagues had a university diploma (Dutch universities are not the same as US universities though. The US calls many more things a university. A typical Dutch university would probably be comparable to an good university in the US). Quite a few teachers even had PhD's.

These days, very few teachers have university degrees, and a PhD teaching at a high school is pretty much unthinkable. And no surprise. Take myself. I come from a family of teachers, and I too enjoy explaining stuff, so teaching wouldn't be an illogical career choice for me. But no way I'm going to do that. It's very, very hard work, very stressful. You always take your work home with you, both literally and emotionally, and the pay is horrible. Even in these economic times it's easy to find a better job.

And the result of that? A huge decrease in the quality of teachers. More and more teachers simply don't know the subject they are teaching very well. Not to mention other subjects. And that is terrible.

Now, this is all about the Netherlands. But from what I've heard and read, the situation on the other side of the pond is very similar.

[Zcorp]

More and more teachers simply don't know the subject they are teaching very well. Not to mention other subjects. And that is terrible.

I'd like to point out, as this is often missed, that having a strong understanding of pedagogy, educational psychology are of great importance to being a good teacher. We should certainly expect teachers to have a strong grasp of their subject material but ideally they should be experts in the aforementioned areas. This will become even more important as online educational tools continue to develop and the teachers job turns more towards facilitating learning, skill building and general development and a a bit away from knowing their subject.

[Lucrece]

Or it just means that pay is a means to that end. Perhaps not a sufficient one, but it is one. Which is... exactly what we were saying?

Regardless, compensation is not equal between two jobs just because pay is equal. Most other countries that have quality education systems are missing something incredibly important that teaching in America lacks.

Prestige.

And to a large bulk of the human population, that is worth far far more than money.

If you could have the title of Doctor and 50k a year or the title of Elementary School Teacher at 70k a year, which do you think most people would pick? (Assuming equal work and effort either way)

Pretty sure it's Elementary School Teacher. The prestige of the title comes through earning power. Doctors and lawyers were popular not because they were deemed particularly complex or requiring more skill, but because they stood as reliable, high income jobs.

Lawyer has devalued as of late because the market has been flooded with them, unlike that of doctors where the fields required are demonstrably more difficult to perform well in.

[Diadem]

I'd like to point out, as this is often missed, that having a strong understanding of pedagogy, educational psychology are of great importance to being a good teacher. We should certainly expect teachers to have a strong grasp of their subject material but ideally they should be experts in the aforementioned areas. This will become even more important as online educational tools continue to develop and the teachers job turns more towards facilitating learning, skill building and general development and a a bit away from knowing their subject.

I couldn't disagree more.

A teacher needs to know enough psychology and pedagogy to be able to maintain order in their classroom, without having to resort to draconian punishments. They also need to understand group dynamics, and be able to recognize what position kids have in the group (eg if a kid is being bullied or not). Finally he needs a basic understanding of the various learning or behavioural disorders that children may have. Such skills are certainly important, but it's also pretty basic stuff, not that hard to master for someone with not-below-average social skills. An expert understanding of pedagogy or educational psychology is certainly not required, except maybe for the school counsellor.

Knowing your subject well however, the importance of that can hardly be overstated. It doesn't matter how good your study material is, books can never replace teachers. Because books can not possibly answer all the questions students may have. Nor can they explain the same subject in 10 different ways, so that everybody will get it. The direct interaction between student and teacher is very important when explaining stuff. You can use questions to see what part a student doesn't get, why he doesn't get it, and then explain it in such a way that he will understand it.

And then there's answering questions from students. If a student makes a test and gets its wrong, it's easy to point that out. But then the student asks "But why is it wrong" and the bad teacher won't have an answer. Or they'll give some meaningless standard answer. And students are creative, they will get things wrong in stranger and more interesting ways than you can imagine. Being able to answer not just the 'what' but also the 'why' requires a very deep understanding of the subject. Even worse are the students who get things right in strange and interesting ways. A bad teacher may not even realize that it's right, falsely correct it, and end up leaving students confused and misinformed. Or they'll resort to a very unsatisfying "You can do that, but you shouldn't".

People always underestimate the depth of knowledge required to be a good teacher. They think that if you understand something, and did some pedagogy courses, then you can explain it. And sure, you can. But with a lot of shortcomings. A good teacher needs to understand every detail of the subject.

[Zcorp]

An expert understanding of pedagogy or educational psychology is certainly not required, except maybe for the school counsellor.

Why would a school counselor need an understanding of either of those to great depth. Clinical psych is the primary realm of a school counselor.

Nor can they explain the same subject in 10 different ways, so that everybody will get it. The direct interaction between student and teacher is very important when explaining stuff. You can use questions to see what part a student doesn't get, why he doesn't get it, and then explain it in such a way that he will understand it.

This is a perfect example of why pedagogy and ed psych are important. This isn't a skill related mastery of the field they are teaching this is a skill related to understanding cognition, motivation, rhetoric, intelligence and personality.

Knowing your subject well however, the importance of that can hardly be overstated. It doesn't matter how good your study material is, books can never replace teachers. Because books can not possibly answer all the questions students may have.

Who said anything about books, I'm pretty sure I mentioned online educational tools. Which have great capacity for engagement, interactivity and individual instruction and understanding of their users.

People always underestimate the depth of knowledge required to be a good teacher. They think that if you understand something, and did some pedagogy courses, then you can explain it. And sure, you can. But with a lot of shortcomings. A good teacher needs to understand every detail of the subject.

I never said depth of knowledge isn't required to be a good teacher. You are also wrong quite wrong to equate my statement "strong understanding of pedagogy, educational psychology are of great importance to being a good teacher" to taking a some courses in pedagogy.

Understanding differences in students, how to teach to those differences, classroom management, student teacher bonding and cultivating motivation have consistently shown to be an incredibly important, if not the most important, aspect of student learning. People are quite curious and interested in learning as long as you don't get in their way and give them access to materials. Not to mention if you now to properly fuel that drive.